89 civic wagovan 5spd (very slow build: power + ecomods & lots of pics!)

[OG VX]

Great progress! That oven-cleaner sitting on the block? Good stuff! Melts away that grease like butter...

Keep it up!

[vrmouseyd15b]

Yup. Works like a charm! These are two very good friends of mine I'd like you to meet. They come from the dollar tree:


(That's not the right cap on the oven cleaner - I keep old brake cleaner caps, they fit almost any aerosol can!)
Good stuff! All my engine cleaning brushes and chemicals and even shiny tire sprays come from the dollar store
At only a dollar a piece, I buy a bunch at a time. God only knows what they must have to say about me once I leave the store with 5 tire cleaner bottles, 4 oven cleaner cans, baby bottle brushes, and assorted other scrubbing / picking items along with other normal stuff we buy there!


edit: you can see my home-made exhaust port for cold weather closed door motor running tests (on the left of the roll up door)

Thanks,
Victor

[vrmouseyd15b]

Made the radio mount proper today, the "jdm" radio sleeve came in today! time to fix the ugly at the radio and share a cool interior mod that I found while reading around online.

Here's the ugly:



The reason it's ugly is because the stock "sleeve" was missing when I bought the car, and I "rigged" up another mount I had laying around just to have tunes to cruise to:


This is the stock "jdm" part for the radio sleeve:


That looks so much better already..



so nice! like it was meant to be!




******** For anybody with an 88-91 wagovan, apparently the arm rest/center console from the 90-91 accord (cb7?) is supposed to fit the wagovans, direct bolt in.
Got one coming from Ebay, $40 shipped:



Thanks,
Victor

[OG VX]

Nice! Loving the "jdm" touch there on the console

Hella hard! Haha

[vrmouseyd15b]

"Yoda" came over last night and we tore the vx block a new one. She's naked and clean now. Took a little work..

PCV assembly, oil filter cooler, and water plumbing / thermostat assembly gone:


Oil pump and sump / pickup off:


Got access to the crank:


Pulled the pistons with rods, etc..




Front main seal off and voila!!:




NAKED


Quickie chemical bath:


Good as new (will be better than new sometime soon):



Motor is ready to go out for work (my wallet isn't ready to send it out anytime soon). Things are moving along nicely. more good news and pretty parts in the next post, I promise


Thanks,
Victor

[vrmouseyd15b]

HASPORT tranny conversion mount kit is here! Heavy duty stuff for sure - talk about overkill! and the cable solution is genius


I like the look of the black powder-coat on the rear tranny mount. that will stay just as it was sent to me.

The cable holder and passenger side trans mount will be too out in the open and will need to be powder-coated red, along with the clutch fork (yoda's got the fork, and I'll get the new parts to him before monday - I'll need them for next weekend)

These are the new parts that will go out for shiny red:



Too bad I don't have the shift fork, or I could show how it would move the clutch with the old cable set-up. I'm impressed. It should work out well

Tranny bearings and seals kit is on the way as well. Should come in tuesday or wed. next week! I'll get the bearings pulled off the VX stuff and ready for pictures as it goes back together! NO LSD FOR NOW, that will have to happen when it comes back apart for the turbo motor. (I don't think this current motor is ready to push a solid diff, this is really just to get a few alignment issues out of the way for the new motor when it comes, and of course, to BOOST MPG'S)

That's all the news for now

Thanks,
Victor

[OG VX]

Nice update! The Hasport stuff looks to be very well built. Looking forward to future updates on this one. Must be fun getting some experience on working inside the lower-end of an engine. I would love to build a motor in the future as well!

[vrmouseyd15b]

Thanks! It's a good time for sure, but there's no way I'd take this kind of thing on by myself without "Yoda" around to help me.
Too bad he can't show me how to lift the car without any tools like in the movies lol.

Thanks,
Victor

[Ecky]

I'd be surprised if you couldn't find some generic mounts on Rock Auto.

[Cobb]

Is the crank ok? Thought I saw some grooves in each journal on either side of the oil journals?